State bill to charge some for school breakfast dies on Senate floor

Measure aimed to avoid raising threshold for which schools qualify for Breakfast after the Bell program

A change to the state's Breakfast after the Bell program got two key votes of approval Monday, then died on a voice vote on the Senate floor Monday night.

House Bill 1463 would have allowed school districts to decide whether to charge students who can afford to pay for their meals to do so. The legislation passed the state House, 51-13, in the morning and the Senate Education Committee, 4-1, in the afternoon.

Breakfast is available to all students in schools with 70 percent or more of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Paying students would have been charged $1.75.

The program was created in 2013, but after an unsuccessful attempt last year to scale back the cost of the program — by raising the threshold to 80 percent of students for a school to qualify — state Reps. Janak Joshi of Colorado Springs, a Republican, and Dominick Moreno, a Democrat, introduced the bill this year to exclude the free meal for those who don't qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Republican Owen Hill of Colorado Springs and Democrat Andy Kerr of Lakewood.

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